In view of the 301 Andhra students who were scheduled to reach Uzgorod in Western Ukraine via trains on March 1 (Tuesday), Principal Resident Commissioner, AP Bhavan, New Delhi, Praveen Prakash has appealed to the Ministry of External Affairs to extend its support for arranging direct flight to Vijayawada so the students could be reunited with their families at the earliest.
In a letter, Mr. Praveen Prakash said the onward flights for Ukraine-returnees were currently operating for New Delhi and Mumbai. “Since Vijayawada has a fully operational international airport and all the 301 of these students hail from Andhra Pradesh, we request your support for them to fly back directly to Vijayawada,” he said.
The Centre had launched ‘Operation Ganga’, a mission to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine and a large number of students trapped in the war zone are from Andhra Pradesh. In its efforts bring home people of the State, the State government was making all-out efforts to ensure safe return of the 669 students whose details so far were available in the database of the State Real Time Governance Society (RTGS)
32 return
“We have so far brought back 32 people,” said Ahmed Babu, CEO of the RTGS. The government was trying to rescue people through the five border countries of Ukraine — Poland, Moldova, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. The authorities had started two WhatsApp groups to stay in touch with the students there and take stock of the situation periodically. “We are also in touch with the major consultation firms through which students migrated to Ukraine in order to reach out to them,” said Mr. Babu.
Students return
Meanwhile, nine Andhra Pradesh students from Ukraine arrived at Mumbai and Delhi airports on Tuesday. “Today we received three students in one flight. All three of them have reached their homes safely,” said Ramakrishna, in-charge of the Andhra Pradesh help centre at Mumbai airport. “One more flight is expected tomorrow (Wednesday) midnight,” he informed.
In the Delhi airport, six students arrived in two flights. “One more flight is expected at 9.20 p.m,” informed the airport in-charge M.V.S. Rama Rao.
Of the 669 students who registered with the RTGS, the highest number of them (101) are from Krishna district. 28 from Anantapur, 37 from Chittoor, 76 from East Godavari, 63 from Guntur, 23 from Kurnool, 38 from Prakasam, 28 from Nellore, 13 from Srikakulam, 99 from Visakhapatnam, 11 from Vizianagaram, 52 from West Godavari, 26 from Kadapa and 74 others.
A majority of the Andhra Pradesh students in Ukraine are pursuing medical courses. According to the data available, 272 are from Zaporozhye State Medical University, 64 from Bukovinian State Medical University, 52 from National Pirogov Memorial Medical University, Vinnytsya, 52 from Kharkiv National Medical University, 38 from Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University, 28 from V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University and 25 from O.O. Bogomolets National Medical University, besides small numbers scattered in other courses and universities.
